JULY 28, 1997:
It seems I spoke too soon. Just as Weekly Alibi went to
print with a column about the famously elusive novelist Thomas
Pynchon, The New Yorker reported that he had finally been
found. Actually, the discovery took place back in June, when an
investigative reporter for London's Times Sunday Magazine
declared that he'd not only tracked down the hermetic writer,
but had even snapped a blurry, Big Footesque photograph of him
skulking down a Manhattan street. (The author was described, just
for the record, as a "large man with glasses and a silvery
mustache" and was wearing a black parka with the hood pulled
up. In June.) But the beauty of it is, few Americans would ever
have learned of the exposé, had it not been for Pynchon's
publisher Henry Holt. A week after the Times piece ran,
Holt's lawyer sent them a rabid letter, demanding that the reporter
not only cease and desist, but that he also destroy all prints
and negatives he has of the novelist. Some veiled threats of legal
action were also thrown in, just to up the ante. And--wouldn't
you know it--all of this happened amid the release of Pynchon's
latest novel, Mason & Dixon, his biggest if not best
work since Gravity's Rainbow. Maybe it would be cynical
to say that Holt has pulled off the greatest publicity stunt of
the year. But if nothing else, it has become a bizarre pop-culture
case that--had it happened to anyone else--Pynchon himself would
probably appreciate.